Naked

by Alexandra Christian

  She paused, running her fingers along the spine of the book before rising to her knees and putting it on the counter. The steaming water sloshed over the sides of the porcelain as she shifted, turning around to face him.

  “She can’t see what she’s got right in front of her. She’s afraid to follow the dangerous man who truly loves her.” Leaning forward, she planted a chaste kiss on his lips then kissed the crest of each cheekbone and his furrowed brow.

  “He scares her,” she whispered. “He makes her burn, deep down in a way that no one ever has.” This time when she kissed him, his hands gripped her skull, pulling her in for a feral embrace that possessed her mouth, body, and soul in an instant.

  “He makes her feel sexy,” she nibbled his jaw, “dirty,” then his chin, “like the whole world is this slow,” and then his lush lower lip, “…wet, hot summer night.” Cage’s arms slid around her waist, pulling her up to straddle his hip. “She knows that it’s a sin—feeling this way. Covetous. Lustful.” Her fingers tangled in the thick waves that fell over his brow, pushing them back so that she could see his eyes—those changeable hot ice orbs that bore into her.

  His breathing never faltered, but a flutter of satisfaction rolled over her lower body at seeing his pupils nearly blacking out those cool blue irises.

  “Sounds pretty dull,” he said, kissing her throat. “If you ask me, she just needed a good shag.”

  Phoe laughed then pressed her body against his. His cock eagerly nudged her sex. “Interestingly enough, that’s when she comes to the realization that maybe she’s hitched her wagon to the wrong horse.”

  He looked puzzled. “Your homespun, country girl vernacular escapes me once again, Miss Addison.”

  “She decided she was in love with him when he made her come.”

  “Is that all it takes?” he purred. Dipping his head down, he nuzzled the delicate skin that lay between her breasts.

  Phoe could feel the animal that he usually kept hidden as he moved against her, gripping her body tight against him, grinding the hard knot of his sex against hers. His lips parted and his canine teeth elongated. Gently he dragged the points across the tip of one rose-colored nipple. She shuddered at the sensation that danced on the jagged edge between pain and pleasure.

  “Don’t worry,” he said, his voice taking on a thick and ominous tone. “Though devouring you is exactly what I had in mind, I promise you’ll enjoy it.”

  “I trust you,” she murmured, getting lost in lascivious thoughts of his promises.

  “Do you?” he asked, nibbling gently at the hardened nub of flesh. He worried it between his teeth, drawing a low moan from deep in her chest.

  “Of course. Besides….” Her voice trailed off in a whisper. “Being what you are wouldn’t be so bad. As long as I could spend eternity with you.”

  She drew her fingertips along his shoulder blade, memorizing the smooth plane of muscle. She’d always thought that vampires were cold, yet Cage’s blood seemed to boil with life. His heart pounded so hard that she felt it against her own. She wrapped her arms around him, leaned in, and brushed her cheek against his.

  “Be careful what you wish for,” he growled.

  “I’m always careful. Well, I used to be before I met you. Now, maybe not so much.”

  As if to illustrate her point, she slid her hand down his chest and lower, forcing it between them until her palm rested against the root of his sex. He let out a groan as her fingers wrapped around its length and squeezed gently. A mischievous grin spread over her features as she watched his reaction. With deliberate attention, she stroked his cock, bringing it to its throbbing, turgid length.

  “It’s intriguing how your shyness seems to have waned, Miss Addison,” he whispered.

  “There are some moments for which shyness is inappropriate, Mr. St. John.”

  Leaning in once more, she licked his lips, attempting to be playful, but his arms wound tight about her, pulling her body against his. She kept her hand firmly wrapped around his cock as he forced his mouth upon hers.

  There was no teasing or coy tricks as he pushed his tongue between her lips. He wanted to taste her, and she knew it. He could have her skin, and she was more than obliged to let him sample. She stroked him to the suggestive motions of his tongue.

  A promise of things to come.

  She whimpered softly against his mouth, feeling the eager tip of his cock nudging toward the opening of her sex. With a measured caress, she brushed it against the swollen bud just above. That tiny bit of flesh that was the center of all sensation.

  She shuddered, pushing her hips forward. He slid into her warmth so easily that both gasped in surprise. As if their bodies had been waiting for this moment to finally become one again.

  Neither moved. They lay there in the steaming bath, panting against one another. The frustrations of the day were lost in the steam of their joining, and now all Phoe wanted was to feel the connection between them. There was no promise of release yet, just the pleasure of two people who had been so lonely finally finding their mate.

  Cage murmured warm and wet whispers that were lost in the crook of her neck. Words she didn’t quite understand, but made her innermost places shudder and throb.

  Without a word, or even much effort, Cage stood, taking Phoe with him. Running on pure instinct, she wrapped her legs around his waist and silently prayed to keep their connection. When they arrived in the bedroom, he laid her down. The heat in his gaze promised so much.

  He lowered himself over her body, kissing his way down every inch. His lips lingered over her navel, bathing the tiny indentation with gentle sweeps of his tongue that slid ever lower.

  “Slow tease,” she purred, reaching down to thread her fingertips into the heavy curls at his crown. She tugged in an attempt to urge him on, begging him to kiss that one delicious mound of flesh. She could swear she heard him chuckle as she arched her hips higher.

  “I think I’ve created a monster,” he rasped, biting down gently on her inner thigh.

  Phoe gasped. “You’re one to talk.”

  His head moved between her thighs, and even before his mouth made contact with her skin, watching him there was the single most erotic experience of her life.

  His movements were deliberate and slow, and as he lapped at the swollen petals that hid the tiny bud of flesh at her center, he made tiny noises, as if bringing her pleasure was all he needed and he couldn’t get enough.

  Phoe whimpered, lay back, and closed her eyes, letting the world fade away. All she could feel, all she could think, was of the luxuriant sensation of his mouth and teeth against those hidden places.

  She tried to move, but the hand resting on her pelvic bone was strong, holding her in place until she thought she might burst.

  “Please,” she whispered just before she came. A sudden and intense surge of sensation shot through her body. “Cage,” she shrieked.

  His grin was savage as he crawled up her body, licking the glistening drops of her arousal from his lips. “One,” he growled. There was a lustful hunger glowing from behind his irises.

  “One?” she asked when she was able.

  “The first of many times I’ll make you scream my name tonight,” he growled.

  16

  Cage woke with a start. His stomach clenched, and he could feel a familiar ache in the back of his mouth. He was hungry. It occurred to him that he hadn’t eaten since they were at Sadie’s. He didn’t remember much about eating there either. He’d been pretty out of it for the first day as his body healed from the zombie attack. But Sadie was a formidable woman. She’d killed a coyote in her back field and drained the blood to feed him.

  He rolled his head to the side to see Phoe lying asleep beside him. He didn’t let himself stare too long, lest his mouth water for her sweeter and warmer human blood.

  He had to hunt.

  He could feel the last several hours lingering in his muscles as he rose from the bed. His enhanced DNA allowed him to heal, but it wa
s often painful. Especially after such a radical shift like the dragon had been. The skin along his spine still burned. Damn Eve. She could have called.

  He tried to be quiet as he moved around the room looking for his clothes.

  “Where are you going?” He stopped and peered over his shoulder to see Phoe watching with those round eyes.

  “I need to…” He looked away, suddenly almost nervous. “I have to hunt. If I go too long without blood, I can’t control it.”

  He didn’t want to frighten her and though they had been through so much, he was still embarrassed about his bloodlust. He didn’t want her to see the monster.

  Phoe pulled the blanket tighter around herself and nodded. Waves of apprehension rolled off her. He could tell that she was afraid to be alone. Their position was precarious, and she was hyperaware.

  “I promise I won’t be gone long.”

  “I know,” she murmured.

  “You’ll be safe here, Phoe. No one saw us but the staff, and I know for certain that they’re quite discreet. Just keep yourself locked in and don’t open the door for anyone.”

  He held up his hand. The hotel had stamped his palm with a sort of ink that would make it impossible for anyone else to open the door from the outside.

  “Try to get some rest. I’ll be back in a little while. Promise.”

  * * *

  Phoe lay there for what seemed an eternity, staring at the ceiling. It was the first time that she’d been without Cage since meeting him. He made her feel safe, and now that he was gone, the old, fragile Phoebe was threatening to come back. Every sound made her flinch.

  Rolling over, she peered at the clock. Eleven in the morning. Though it was light out, the sun was obscured by a heavy wave of stormy clouds that had rolled in while they were sleeping. It made everything more ominous. The air seemed to be charged with an unnatural electricity. Something was going to happen, and Phoe was almost certain that it would not be good when it did.

  Her eyes slid back toward the clock again. Only three minutes from when she’d last checked.

  “Go to sleep, Phoe,” she said to the empty room. “He’ll be back when you wake up.” It was selfish her wanting him back quickly. And it wasn’t just the fear of being alone. She could still feel his fingertips on her skin, burning trails of desire along her body. His kisses lay heavy in her memory and she wanted more. Now that she had discovered the wonder of her own sensuality, she was addicted.

  Or perhaps Cage was her addiction.

  Something glimmered in the dim light cast by the alarm clock. She squinted, trying to focus, then realized it was the amulet. She must have laid it down when getting undressed for her bath. Such a small thing. What sort of power did it hold that made it such a dangerous commodity?

  Obviously it was important. Important enough to kill for. Maybe Cage was right. Maybe they should go after whatever those markings were leading them toward. Right now, Machine was holding all the cards and, therefore, controlling the game. But if she and Cage had whatever Machine was trying so desperately to hide, they’d have a bargaining chip. A bargaining chip that might well save all their lives.

  Something Eve had said was niggling in the back of Phoe’s mind like a nasty little parasite. They knew too much at this point, all of them. There was no way that Machine would keep them alive once he had what he wanted.

  Phoe threw the covers back and rose from the bed. She turned on the bedside lamp and grabbed the amulet from its resting place. Turning it over in her hand, she examined the markings, trying to make some sense of the glyphs.

  Of course it was pointless. She had no idea about those Sin’khari or whatever Cage had called them. Jess had told her something about them possibly being what humans called the Sumerians. Their culture had spawned all of civilization, bringing the human race into the light. It made sense. While working at the archives, she had seen an example of a cuneiform tablet, and these markings were similar.

  Cage’s pack was still lying open on the media stand. Phoe picked it up, rummaging through, looking for his eSlate. She breathed a sigh of relief, realizing that it was still operational and had some battery life left. She brought up the info browser and a digital hologram projected in the air over the device.

  “Cuneiform translate,” she said. Instantly, a list of sites popped up and she used her fingertips to scroll through them. It took a few tries to select one. She’d never been good with technology. Her mobile slate was a tiny paperweight she used sometimes to talk to people.

  A pleasant-looking hologram appeared before her. “Welcome to Decipher, courtesy of RazCon Technologies. Oral or text?”

  “Text,” Phoe replied, somewhat skeptical that a computer would be able to actually listen and respond to her.

  “Language of origin?”

  “English.”

  “Scan text now, please,” the pixilated woman commanded.

  Phoe was puzzled and looked down at the amulet in her hand and back to her phone. A small, blinking box had appeared on the tiny screen. She put the amulet face down on the space, feeling like a complete idiot.

  “Thank you,” the hologram replied before dissolving into a mess of code. The pixels rearranged themselves into a perfect three-dimensional model of the amulet. Phoe couldn’t help but gasp. It looked real. Like she could reach out and touch it. The program turned the model of the amulet around, evidently taking readings of all the markings.

  “What language?” the translator asked.

  “Cuneiform?” Phoe replied, chuckling that she was carrying on a conversation with a computer. The thought that it would understand cuneiform was ridiculous.

  “Thank you.” The program made a chirping noise as it processed her request until finally the digital woman reappeared on the opposite side of the screen once more. “Language origin unknown. Closest translation from cuneiform is portal.”

  “Portal?” Phoe asked. “Portal to what?”

  She clutched the amulet in her hand and closed up the phone. That would make sense given their theory that the charm was really a key. A key to a door that was hiding some great treasure. If Machine was a money-hungry opportunist then perhaps there was something valuable behind that “portal.”

  Gold or jewels seemed a bit trite to Phoe. Why would the Sin’khari be so interested in gold? Would that be valuable to an alien civilization? Maybe they used it to power their spaceships. That seemed unlikely and fanciful. Phoebe weighed the possibilities and decided it wasn’t hiding something; it was keeping something contained.

  “Bring up Gnosis,” Phoe commanded the slate. The Decipher program was swept to the side and another screen popped up with a symbol that looked like a third eye opening up. “Sin’khari,” Phoe said. The screen blinked, obviously processing what she had asked.

  After a few seconds the disturbingly serene voice of Gnosis said, “Sin’khari is an ancient language thought to have been a spoken form of cuneiform.” It brought up several panels of articles about the Sin’khari language, but Phoe wasn’t interested in the common knowledge. She was about to close the panels when something caught her eye. Holy shit, it was an image of Jess.

  Phoebe’s fingers swept over the digital photo projected and instantly all sorts of information about Jess, including links to her papers, and links to articles about her flashed on the screen. Phoe missed her sister, and the realization that Jess might be lying dead on some other planet was just too much.

  “Jess, you bitch,” she Phoebe. “You left me here alone. You always leave me alone and I hate you for it. You’ve never been there for me. Or Mom, for that matter. But you’re all I have. Please don’t be dead.”

  After several moments, she wiped her eyes on Cage’s discarded shirt and threw it aside. “All right, Phoe. Get it together.” She pulled down an article about Jess’s research and read carefully.

  “The noted archaeologist Jessica Addison presented a paper voicing a new theory about where we come from.” Then a video popped up of Jess speaking to a
conference room full of people.

  “Evidence suggests that the Fertile Crescent, once thought to be the cradle of all civilization, may be the gateway to a whole new world. Last year, I had the privilege of heading up a dig at the base of the Zagros mountain range in Iran. The four large sites yielded artifacts like none we’d ever seen before. Including this.”

  Jess paused and projected a photograph of a stone door, carved with strange characters like the one on the amulet.

  “Given our rudimentary knowledge of the Sin’khari language, we couldn’t be sure what this meant. Until now. Using the artifacts found at the Zagros sites and others, we were able to translate a portion of the carvings.” She pointed to two circled symbols. “KAGAL, a Sumerian word meaning city gate, and DALKHU, meaning demons or evil spirits.”

  A loud thump sounded in the hall outside the hotel room door. Phoe gasped and dropped the slate. She held her breath, listening for what would happen next.

  She counted her heartbeats and considered crawling under the bed. She could see the door leading to the hall and the bright light that seeped underneath under the crack. A shadow stopped in front of the room.

  “Oh shit,” she whispered to herself, instinctively holding the amulet close to her body. She waited, knowing that any second she would hear the clicking as someone hacked the key reader to gain entry. But nothing came, and after a few seconds, the shadows on the floor moved on.

  She allowed herself to breathe again and stood up, still careful to be quiet. “Get a hold of yourself, woman,” she admonished as she stood. “I’ll just go put something on, make myself a cup of tea, and calm the fuck down.”

  Phoe wandered into the bathroom where she’d discarded her clothes early this morning, and picked up the shirt she’d been wearing. She held it to her nose and deemed it clean enough to put back on. Perhaps Cage would bring some clean clothes back with him.

  She pulled the flannel shirt around her shoulders. Her hands trembled, and she found it hard to work the buttons, but eventually, she got her fingers to do the job.